Firefly S01 E09 – Swoon.

Previously: We learned how Mal, the crew, and Serenity came together.
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Ariel

Sara: We open in the kitchen / common area, where Inara and Kaylee are playing a game, Simon is trying to get River to eat something, and Jayne is sitting off by himself. Simon tries to convince River that the food is good, but Jayne says it smells like crotch, which is the funniest description I’ve ever heard. Zoe and Wash enter, playfully arguing about taking a vacation. Wash wants to take a vacation on Ariel, but Zoe knows that Ariel is a hot spot for the Feds.

Wash begs someone to help him convince Zoe, and Inara chimes in that Ariel is a beautiful planet with lots of romantic things to do. Even Simon helps try to sell it, and Wash eagerly bounces up and down and it’s the cutest. Zoe is adamant, though: “I don’t care if it’s got sunsets 24 hours a day, I ain’t settin’ foot on that planet.” Mal enternounces that ain’t nobody settin’ foot on that planet. The ship is only stopping there to let Inara off so she can renew her companion license, but everyone else is to stay inside, not look out the windows, and be quiet. Womp womp. Thanks a lot, Captain Dad.

Marines: He’s totally a buzzkill. A buzzkill in tight pants, who has a strong jaw I just want to lick.

What? Nothing. Never mind.

Sara: Jayne makes that disgusting hawking a loogie noise that your brother used to make over your face, and Simon is trying to eat right next to him. “Could you not do that while we’re…. ever?” I don’t know how I’d forgotten that Simon has some of the best lines in this whole series. Is it okay if have more than one boyfriend?

Sweeney: It totally is, but you best back the fuck off because this one’s mine. You and Mari can go back to your Brandy/Monica showdown over the magnificent Captain Tightpants and leave me and my doctor boyfriend alone.

Sara: Okay, okay. I’ll take Mal, you get Simon, and Mari is left in the cold.

The conversation changes to Wash asking Inara how she doesn’t hate doctors, to which Simon gives a cute little, ahem, hey. Wash adds, present company excluded and Jayne pipes in that it would be rude to exclude present company, right as River walks up and slashes him across the chest with a knife. He backhands her and everyone rushes to the both of them. River says, “He looks better in red,” and whew, that was a way to start an episode, huh?!

Mari: It was nicely acted. They had just a little shot of River picking up a knife in the background and it gave you a moment of, “…shit.” And that little moment grows into a giant “SHIT.” when River just casually slices Jayne. The back slap was an additional second of cringe. When River looks up at Jayne, I half expected her to be all, “what just happened?” and instead, bitch says he looks better in red. Damn.

Sweeney: I’m still over here like, “What just happened?” about this.

Sara: In the infirmary, Jayne is still bitching about River trying to kill him. He warns Mal that if River and Simon don’t get gone, he’ll have to start locking his room at night because she might be coming for the captain next. Mal gets up in Jayne’s face and tells him what the fuck is up. “This is my boat. They’re part of my crew. No one’s gettin’ left. Best you get used to that.”

Jayne storms out and Mal turns his attention to Simon. From this point forward, River is to stay confined to her room. If Simon wants to take her anywhere else, he’ll have to ask for permission. The deal Mal and Simon originally made was that they could stay on the Serenity as long as Simon kept River in check. Mal thinks that if he can’t keep a hold of her, they might have to revisit the deal. He asks if River is getting worse, and Simon responds that she is.

Ariel. The ship lands, and inside, Kaylee is telling Inara that she might meet a young, handsome doctor who will ask her out. (M: Projecting.) She asks what the companion policy is on dating, and Inara just answers that it’s complicated. They tell each other to stay out of trouble, and THEY ARE JUST SO CUTE. I love these girls. (M: +1) (S: PRECIOUS.)

Mal and Jayne are playing horseshoes in the cargo bay, while the latter complains that they won’t be able to find a job if they don’t leave the ship. Mal says there aren’t any jobs worth having around here, and Wash throws in that they haven’t been able to find any jobs at their last three stops. Jayne’s dad always said, “Anyone who can’t find work ain’t lookin’ hard enough.” Simon enternounces that they can stop looking now, because they have a client: him.

YOU CAN’T TAKE THE SKY FROM MEEEEEE.

After the best opening credits ever made, Mal asks Simon what he’s talking about. Simon shows them all some medicines and gives them the street value. The mission will pay for itself. The plan is to get inside the fancy hospital there and steal the shelves of medicine they have. The other part of the mission is getting Simon and River in the Diagnostic Ward so he can use their 3D Neuro-Imager. He hopes to be able to use the machine to figure out what the Alliance did to her.

I was about to make a comment about the last time they stole medicine and how it didn’t really work out, but then Zoe mentions that since it’s a federal hospital, the medicine will be restocked within hours. Wash is totally cool with the idea of stealing from the rich and selling to the poor but asks how exactly they plan on getting around the security at a federally run hospital.

We cut to a Mission Impossible looking scene where Simon is explaining the layout, the alarms, and the basic plan for getting in. Basically, Simon and River will be going in through the front door. He goes on that he’ll need some supplies before they get there, but since he’s a fugitive, they’ll need a volunteer to go out on Ariel and collect them. Kaylee’s and Jayne’s hands shoot up eagerly. They’ll also be needing an official vehicle to get inside the hospital. The other supplies will be collected from local junk yards, so they don’t get caught stealing before their big mission.

Sweeney: After the last episode there were extra warm fuzzies for having the whole gang (sans Book) together to plan/scheme.

Sara: Ariel Junk in the Trunk Yard. Wash and Kaylee are picking through parts, and Kaylee wishes that she had had to collect things from a mall or something instead of this junk yard. They round a corner and Wash finds a helicopter looking thing to use as a getaway vehicle. Well that was convenient!

Mari: Good thing this planet isn’t big on the recycling, am I right? Also, I hope Kaylee grabbed some extra parts for Serenity, so next time something breaks they don’t almost die…

Sara: On a different part of the planet, Jayne is trading money for fake uniforms, ID badges, and key cards.

Back on the ship, Simon is leading Zoe, Mal, and Jayne through some medical jargon that will help them get through the door. He keeps doing that teacher thing where you trail off at the end of the sentence, waiting for the students to fill in the blanks. But the students are just reading your lips and trying to say it at the same time as you, because they don’t have a damn clue. Even Jayne is participating, although he is kind of doing a terrible job. Just take my word for it, it’s adorable. (S: MORE PRECIOUS.)

Some time later, Wash and Kaylee show Simon the ship they fixed up, and it does look pretty fly. (M: FOR A WHITE… ambulance helicopter.) Zoe, Mal, and Jayne walk out in their uniforms, and Simon is pleased. Mal says they just need a few patients, and they’ll be ready to go. Simon corrects him: They’ll need a few corpses. River and Simon will have to be dead for this to work. Jayne says he’s liking this idea already. Heehee.

Back in Simon’s room, he’s explaining to River how they’ll pretend to be asleep until they get inside and then they’ll wake up and get to work. River doesn’t want to go to that place, and she doesn’t want to die, but Simon reassures her. When they finish the mission, Simon will be able to help River and make the nightmares go away. She finally agrees, and he injects her with the drug that will make her temporarily “die.”

Mari: A really touching scene and good acting by both Summer and Sean.

Sara: Everyone is on the Decoy Ship, ready for the mission. Jayne is still going over his lines, and Mal interrupts to make sure he won’t have any problems between Jayne and Simon on this mission. Jayne replies that he still doesn’t like the doctor, but his plan is good and money is just the thing to help Jayne forget his grudge. That’s valid as fuck to a poor person.

Mari: Um, hell yes. There is no grudge I hold tight enough that money won’t help me forget it. So, it’s kind of like being poor makes you extra forgiving. Or something.

Sweeney: *to people who give you money

Sara: Jayne insists that nobody needs to worry about him, because as long as he gets paid, he’s good.

Blue Light Hospital. The crew wheel the “dead bodies” into the hospital and Mal starts his speech but is interrupted by the nurse who tells him to just take them down to the morgue. All three of them look pretty upset about not being able to do the lines they practiced for so long, and it is perfect. After a moment of awkward silence, Jayne says his lines anyway and Mal gives him a wtf look. (M: Best.)

Morgue. Mal injects Simon and River with the serum that will wake them up and tells Jayne to get Simon to the Diagnostic Ward and then haul ass back to the meet-up spot. Rather than sitting around and waiting for them to regain consciousness, Jayne heads to the closest video screen and swipes his key card to call the police. The Alliance man who answers asks if Jayne has his fugitives. Jayne responds that if Alliance Man has his reward, he’s got the fugitives. Before hanging up, Alliance Man [AM] tells him that he’s about to become a very rich man. UGH, JAYNE. NO. YOU STOP THIS.

Mari: This moment, of Jayne betraying them, is one the most memorable moments of the series for me. And yet I can’t help but react that same way. NO JAYNE. NO.

Sweeney: WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? JAYNE, HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO US?

Sara: Jayne makes his way back to the Morgue where River wakes up suddenly and says, “Copper for a kiss,” scaring the shit out of Jayne. (M: Judas reference, anyone? Curse his sudden but inevitable betrayal.) (S: Jesus points!) Simon wakes up coughing because of the after effects of the drug, and Jayne mocks him because River seems fine which of course cues the sound of River vomiting on the floor.

Mal and Zoe are walking the hallways, discussing the rest of the plan. A few more turns and they’ll be at the meet-up spot. Mal reminds Zoe to just smile at everyone they pass, and she tells him that people don’t smile at hospitals. “Of course they do. It’s a core. Everyone’s rich and happy here. Why wouldn’t they smile?” 

Sweeney: The “money can buy you happiness” messages are abundant here. Let’s see if that’s at all related to a character’s attempt to purchase happiness at the expense of principles and loyalty!

Sara: They’re stopped by a surgeon who just so happens to be the dad from Even Stevens! Hey, old friend! (M: YES. I KNEW I KNEW HIM.) He asks them where they’re going, and when they tell him the morgue, he gets suspicious because the morgue is in the opposite direction. He asks to see their badges.

Simon is wheeling River in a wheelchair with Jayne as their escort. She keeps pointing at patients she’s passing, all, Yep, that one’s gonna die. Doctor’s gonna mess up. No hope for him. Remind me to never have a River around me because that shit would be depressing.

 
  Mari: Yes, but if I’m going to a hospital, I’ll please bring River. “That doctor is going to mess up…” “NOPE. NEED A NEW ONE.”

Sara: Simon tells her that everything is fine here, because these doctors are the best in the world. In that case, River thinks that Simon should be there, too. One of the men she originally marked as To Be Dead starts flat lining, and River cries that his doctor is killing him. She asks Simon to help, so he runs over to check on the guy. I admire your morals, man, but you have a job to do!

Lucky for To Be Dead man, Simon realizes that the guy’s doctor gave him medicine that was hurting him. River smiles and Simon schools the doctor on how he almost killed the guy because he wasn’t paying attention to his meds. Way to not call attention to yourself, Simon.

Even Stevens is still hassling Mal and Zoe about how he’s going to contact their supervisor, so Zoe uses a defibrillator on him. Problem solved!

Mari: They are… standing in a hallway. Way to not call attention to yourselves, Mal and Zoe.

Sweeney: They are all very bad at this game.

Sara: The others make it to the Diagnostic Ward, and the look of terror on River’s face makes sense because that room looks pretty damn terrifying.

When Zoe and Mal make it to the medicine supply, their cards don’t work. Luckily for them, they put Even Stevens in the hospital bed they’re wheeling around, so they just use his card. Jayne was really working on botching this from the beginning, huh?

Mari: Oh, nice catch. While I was watching I just thought, “they don’t seem too worried that their cards didn’t work…” I didn’t tie it back to Jayne.

Sweeney: Same! A+ TV, Sara!

Sara: I’m patting myself on the back!

Simon puts River in the chair and starts using the big scary diagnostic machine on her.

Zoe and Mal start stealing all the medical supplies they can find. It’s a whole lot of medicine. Once they finish grabbing their loot, they head back out.

The diagnostic machine starts working, and it’s pretty freaking cool.

Simon realizes that they opened River’s skull and went into her brain. Jayne asks why and Simon responds that the only reason to go into someone’s brain would be to lobotomize them or remove damaged tissue. He doesn’t understand why anyone would cut into a healthy brain, but he can see that they’ve done it over and over. He says they stripped her amygdala and Jayne asks what that means.

“You know how you get scared or worried or nervous, but you don’t want to be scared or worried or nervous so you push it to the back of your mind? You try not to think about it? Your amygdala is what lets you do that. It’s like a filter in your brain that keeps your feelings in check. She feels everything. She can’t not.”

Jayne says they need to get going, but Simon tells him they still have twenty minutes. Jayne tells him that the plan changed when Simon was out. Simon only needs a few more minutes, but just then, River starts freaking out. (M: Her brain scan starts freaking out in color.) Jayne tells him to get River back in the wheelchair, but she’s still whimpering. “They come out of the bike. They come when you call. Your toes are in the sand.” Jayne tells her to keep her mouth shut and prepares to leave.

As they wheel her back through the hospital, Simon complains about not being alerted of the change in plans. They go through a doorway that Jayne is holding open and federal agents appear all around them to tell them that they’re under arrest. An officer puts handcuffs on Jayne, too, and he asks AM where his money is. “You mean my money for apprehending three fugitives?” THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS, JAYNE. (S: ASS.) He tries to shove the arresting officer down but gets shot with some futuristic gun for his trouble.

Mal and Zoe make it back to the meet-up spot where Wash is waiting for them. They talk about the great haul they got, and Wash and Zoe kiss a little before Mal tells them to stop celebrating until the mission is over. When he asks where the others are, they look worried.

Alliance. Simon thanks Jayne, because he hasn’t realized that Jayne was the one who sold them out. Jayne tells him to shut up so he can figure out a way out. River interrupts to say that they took Christmas away. “I came downstairs for the shiny presents. They took the tree and the stockings. Nothing left but coal. Don’t look in the closet, either. It’s greedy. It’s not in the spirit of the holiday.” Jayne tells River if she doesn’t stfu, he’ll do it for her.

Getaway Car. Kaylee checks the hospital radio and finds some Alliance talking in code about ducks. Mal immediately starts putting together a plan to go rescue them, as he thinks this is code for their crew being caught.

Sweeney: Ducks? Really? They couldn’t have come up with a code that was less blatantly obviously code? Get your shit together, Alliance.

Sara: Alliance. AM tells the three fugitives to get up so they can transport them. Simon asks where they’re going but AM refuses to answer. Simon gets all up in his face and tells him that he’s pretty sure whoever wants Simon and River wants them alive, so he won’t be moving from that spot until one of two things happens. Either AM answers his very simple question or shoots him. AM tells him that they’re transferring them to a holding area until they can be picked up. When they make it into the holding area, Jayne attacks the officers with some help from Simon.

Mari: Well, go ahead Simon! Look at you coming up with a criminal plan, suffocating a man while handcuffed and yelling at an officer all in one episode.

Sweeney: *swoon*

Sara: Elsewhere in the hospital, Mal and Zoe are receiving instructions from Wash about where to go to save the rest of their crew. On the way, he bitches about how things never go according to plan. Wash tells them to hurry up because reinforcements just arrived.

Now that all the Alliance officers are down, Jayne, River, and Simon make a run for it. Jayne wants to go out the way they came in, but Simon tells him that there will definitely be Feds that way. Jayne thinks he can take them now that he has a gun from one of the dead Alliance cops. Simon would rather risk going the other way, but River says it doesn’t matter because they’re here.

Alliance. AM tells two guys in suits and blue gloves that the prisoners have been processed, but he doesn’t get why they’re so important since the girl was only speaking gibberish. Suit Number One asks him if the rest of his crew talked to them too, and he confirms that they did as much as they had to. Suit Number Two pulls out a long wand-like device that makes a high-pitched humming noise. As AM continues talking, his nose begins to bleed and then all of his orifices have blood pouring out of them. He chokes and falls back, presumably dead. Creeeeepy.

Mari: Gross. If someone takes out a nefarious device and asks you like 10 times if you really talked to some people, SAY NO.

Sweeney: I could not watch this. Also I guess you don’t need very good codes when you can say, “Oh, did you hear my coded nonsense message you couldn’t decipher? Great. You can bleed to death now.”

Sara: Jayne, River, and Simon can hear the screaming men inside and look scared. River keeps repeating “two by two, hands of blue” to herself, and now we can understand where that phrase comes from! She runs away and the boys follow, hoping she knows where an exit is. Jayne tells them they’re going back but, after hearing another man screaming in agony, changes his mind and follows the siblings. River gets to a door and Jayne beats on it for a while until Mal kicks it open from the other side, just as the Suits make it to the room.

Mari: The blue-gloved bad guys weren’t even trying very hard to catch them. They were walking through the facility all calm like. Dumb.

Sweeney: Their extra-creepy insta-hemorrhage device has them overly confident.

Sara: Serenity. Inara is back from her check-up and asking Kaylee what’s going on. She gives them a quick plot catch up right as the rest of the crew flies back in to the cargo bay. Wash takes off to get the ship out of there, and Mal asks Simon if he got what he needed. He replies in the affirmative and goes on that Jayne was amazing on the mission and they wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for him. I hope Jayne feels like a huge asshole for not even being caught for this.

OH HEY, SPOKE TOO SOON. After everyone leaves the cargo bay, Mal whacks Jayne in the head with a wrench! I completely forgot about this, but I should have known that Mal wouldn’t be deceived that easily.

Sweeney: This was pretty badass. He let everyone else have their sweet little moment of celebration and played along only to HANDLE THIS SHIT the second they were alone.

Sara: Now I’m swooning.

When Jayne comes to, he’s laying in a small locked room with a walkie talkie next to him. He yells out, and Mal bangs on the tiny window on his door and motions to the walkie talkie. He tells Jayne that since the job is over, they should talk. Mal opens the airlock a bit so that Jayne can feel the pull from the air outside. He wants to know why Jayne would have been around the back of the hospital since that wasn’t part of the plan. He tells Jayne that he knows he called the Feds, but Jayne swears to god that he didn’t like a big lying liar who lies.

Mal threatens to send him out the airlock, and Jayne apologizes. “Sorry for what, Jayne? I thought you’d never do a thing.” Jayne tells him the money was too good to turn down and Mal shouldn’t even be mad because he didn’t turn on him, just on River and Simon. Mal yells at him that if he turns on any of his crew, he turns on the captain, too. Since that’s a concept Jayne can’t understand, he has no place with the crew on Serenity.

Mal walks back over to the control panel, and Jayne asks him what he’s going to tell the others about what he did. When Mal says he hasn’t thought that far ahead, Jayne begs him to tell the others a lie instead of what he really did. Mal looks thoughtful and closes the airlock instead of opening it. He tells Jayne that the next time he stabs him in the back, he should do it to his face. He leaves the walkie talkie behind and walks away.

Mari: Even more great acting in this scene. Jayne and Mal are so great to compare– the big game talker, seemingly out for only himself, and the straight to the chase man, fiercely loyal to his ship and his crew. I LOVE THESE CHARACTERS.

Sweeney: Going back to the big money or loyalty question, it was fitting that in the end, Jayne couldn’t stand the thought of the others knowing what he did, even in death.

Sara: Tam Room. Simon brings some medicine for River, and she asks if it’s time to go to sleep again. “No, mei mei. It’s time to wake up.”

This episode is probably going to end up on the lower half of my series rankings, but again, that doesn’t mean much for this show because all of the episodes are so good that even the ones I’m not as crazy about are still amazing. I like exploring more of what’s going on with River, and it’s nice that we got a little more information on her this time.

I also like exploring Jayne’s traitorous side. When we saw last week how quickly Jayne turned on his original crew for more money and his own room, it makes sense that he would do what he did here. I’m conflicted about how Mal handled this, though. I love Jayne as a character, but from a practical point of view, it seems dumb to keep him around from this point forward, right? Unless Mal is a really good judge of character and can see that Jayne recognizes what he did and will  never attempt it again. I’m glad he didn’t send him out the airlock, but I’m still mad at Jayne.

Mari: I think Mal isn’t really thinking completely with his head, but with that deep sense of loyalty. He won’t get rid of River, he won’t get rid of Jayne. These aren’t just crew members, though, they’re family. And I think we all have that family member we’d like to throw out of the airlock, if you know what I mean, but you don’t.

Sweeney: Right. Disloyalty was Jayne’s great sin here and if Mal cares enough about loyalty that he’d kill a man for it, then it stands to reason that his loyalties would also be sufficient to give him pause. Mal is fiercely loyal enough that not even Jayne’s betrayal is enough to sever it — logical, self-preserving choices aside. Honestly, as mad as I am with Jayne for what he did, I would have lost considerable respect for Mal if he had sent Jayne out the airlock.

Sara: I think another thing that makes this not my favorite episode is that we’re missing a few crew members and the rest are separated for most of the episode. Inara is having a check-up, Book is gone, and Kaylee and Wash don’t get a lot of screen time on this one. (S: True! I flailed too soon about that.) But still, there was some great stuff here! This is the first time that we’ve been on an inner core planet, so we finally get to see some of the technology of the future. Plus those hands of blue Suit guys were extra terrifying. BUT I’M STILL MAD AT JAYNE.

 

Next time on Firefly: The crew has to save the captain, and Inara has a new female client in S01 E10 – War Stories.